11 Ways to Improve Your Vacation Rental Website Content

Consider this: you send out an email blast to all of your past guests. You invite them to book again through your vacation rental website.

Someone who booked a stay with you years ago on VRBO remembers the reviews were good and the pictures were fine. They click on your website

Your pictures are new, you have a logo, you’re easy to access on a smart phone. And most of all, you are a hospitality brand now, not just a vacation rental listing.

The guest imagines a stay that will be even better than last time. They decide to book.

How did this happen?

Content.

Having strong content is the heart and soul of booking a traveler’s stay on your vacation rental website. It is the core of branding your business. It powers email marketing, a social media presence, getting press, and word of mouth recommendations.

OneRooftop is a vacation rental website builder. In other words, this means you can create all your pages first and change the design later. Even if you get a custom website design, the pages you created will still exist.

I like to think of of your pages and your design as putting on a jacket. It’s still you underneath the jacket, but you can change your jacket whenever you want. To keep up with this metaphor, what I want to help you with is that under the jacket you are your best self.

Things to Do

1. Do make it strong.

The big idea behind content marketing is that businesses are rewarded when they provide a meaningful experience. People think their website is useful. The site makes booking a vacation easy to accomplish. Or in the words of content marketer, Parker Tarun…

Rule 1 of Content: Content is never good. Content is only strong or not strong. An inclination to say “good” indicates strength. #contentlaw

In other words, your content marketing is measured by how compelling people find it. Check your property description for clutter. Is there too much writing? Cross stuff out. Is there a way to avoid a cliche? Sharpen your pencil and re-write it.

Remember that people read less. Take some new photos of your property or work with a local photographer to overhaul your website’s look. Get a film maker from the local community college to make a video of your property and town.

2. Be helpful (it’s easier than being sales-y).

We work in hospitality because being helpful is easy for us. If you started with a simple vacation rental website builder, you need content. OneRooftop has so many awesome page templates. It’s never been so easy to build up a website. Did you know you can easily add a Yelp search to your page? It’s a great way to get people using your website to plan out their activities.

What else is easy? Putting in pictures. I’m always surprised by how many website mangers put photos on their property page and nowhere else. Put photos on your Local Info page, on your About Us page. Use photos everywhere.

3. Use clear photos.

If you don’t have clear photos, get clear photos. Whether you take them yourself, get a stock photo, or hire someone from the local community college. Pexels has some great free stock photos. If you take them yourself, be sure to fill them with lots of light!

When you add photos, add in alt tag with keywords. Use hyphens between the keywords. An example would be: stinson-beach-house-rental.

4. Create several pages.

Your content is way too strong to put all on one page. If you’re making a local info page, don’t create one page with a hundred places to shop, dine, play, swim, and so on. Create a local info page for restaurants. For shopping centers. For Hikes. You could make a local info page just for tacos if you wanted! Putting this content into sub menus is easy to do. Learn how in OneRooftop’s Help Center.

I am always amazed by the work done by Karen’s work at Lamar Valley Cabins, whose Winter and Summer Guides are exemplary of strong content. She uses a large banner photo to draw people in, and has selected terrific thumbnail photos for the different outdoor guides.

5. Know your keywords.

Using keywords in your Meta titles is the best place to start. Over time, incorporate them into your content. Just don’t beat a dead horse. Keyword stuffing gets people blacklisted on Google. Search engines want you to have relevent content. According to Jon Morrow on Smart Blogger, you should spend the first year of your website just building content. Worry about keywords later. Once you’ve really built up a brand, a following online, then you’re ready to start keyword planning. OneRooftop made a guide for tackling an SEO game plan you’ll find useful once you’re ready.

6. Know how to deliver your content.

Is it email blasts? Facebook? Twitter? Pinterest? Instagram? Whatever works, keep pressing on with that. If you have a blog on wordpress, there are also cool Reader features so other bloggers can find your posts.

Things You Should NOT Do

1. Don’t think you don’t need content.

Because you do.

There is no shortcut to improving your vacation rental marketing performance. If you read our post from last week, 12 Ways People Find Your Vacation Rental Website to Book, you know it takes creativity. Videos, photos, clear headings, strong writing, and clear understanding of your keywords.

2. Don’t have an old theme.

We mean it! A website that confuses potential guests ruins everything. A solid template organizes all your content so guests can easily navigate your website and book a property.

Our design team has been cooking up a storm (well, designing up a storm of clean and beautiful templates). See a preview of some of our favorite new responsive themes. Our in-house design team is also available if you’re looking for something more custom.

3. Don’t be scared of blogging (regularly).

This could also be called: Don’t get overwhelmed by vacation rental marketing.

Pick a morning once a month. Write three hundred words about something in your town you love. Push publish.

Not so scary, is it? Remeber: You are the expert on your town! You can create an amazing blog for your vacation rental website by taking an hour every thirty days. Create an account with WordPress. (Psst. Remember that you can always give OneRooftop support a call if you have questions.) One of the best blogs I’ve seen recently for a vacation rental website is managed by Deluca Vacation Homes in Orlando. Check out their blog about taking a vacation to Disney World.

5. Don’t buy links, followers, or email lists.

Take Your Vacation Rental Website Places

OneRooftop empowers owners and managers with an easy-to-use website builder, a powerful booking engine, and more marketing tools than you could shake a stick at. Learn more about OneRooftop’s services. OneRooftop has a 15-day free trial where you can begin to build out your content.